One-Eyed Jacks

by Brad Smith

  “Nothing with Dunston?” Herm asked.

  “Mel Dunston’s a cheap, short-sighted, petty son of a bitch,” Lee said. She glanced toward the office. “I’m gonna introduce him to my mother.”

  When her drink came Herm paid for it. Lee took a sip, then pushed it away. Liquor wasn’t going to do it.

  “You know any more good horses, Herm?”

  “I wish I did.”

  “Me too.”

  The band straggled in as they sat there. Doc Thorne joined them for a quick whiskey, then went backstage. Lee said she should go as well, then called for another gin. She was strung out, Herm could see, her eyes darting, her hands restless on the cheap tablecloth.

  Nowhere to turn.

  “You know what I think?” Herm told her. “I think Tommys gonna turn out Nick Wilson’s lights in the first round. I think it’s gonna be an easy night for him.”

  Lee was looking at her drink. “Well, we can bullshit all we want,” she said. “But we both know the truth. You ever been to an Irish wake, kid?”

  “No, and I don’t figure to be going to one.”

  But she was looking away now. Her eyes were suddenly flat and cold — out of place in that face — and Herm realized that she was looking at Tony Broad. The kid Callahan was with Broad, like usual, and he was standing glassy-eyed mean at the bar. Lee downed her drink and got to her feet.

  “Hey,” Herm said.

  “I’ll talk to you later,” she told him.

  She walked across the room like she was walking to her fate, a woman of resolve in green velvet and high heels and seamed stockings. When Tony Broad asked if she wanted a drink, she said okay.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  A kid found the body the next morning around eight o’clock, in the alley behind the North Star Diner. The kid had three hundred handbills to deliver and after the first hundred he ducked behind the restaurant, intending to dump the rest in the trash there. Bert Tigers’ body was jammed in among the cans, with his neck twisted upward, his rummy blue eyes wide open, and a bullet hole in his chest. The kid went inside and told the morning cook, who called the cops and went back to his grill.

  The North Star was barely three blocks from the Jasper Hotel. By noon the cops were in Tommy’s room, a uniform named Mostel and a middle-aged detective with a harelip. The detective’s name was Randall. He showed Tommy the contract, which they’d found in the alley with Bert. The cop held the contract in a handkerchief, very professional.

  “That all he had on him?” Tommy asked.

  “That’s about it.”

  “Then whoever killed him got five thousand dollars for their trouble.” And he watched as the farm slipped away, this time for good.

  “How do you know that?” the lip asked.

  “Because it was my five grand,” Tommy told him. “He was delivering it to me. Whose name is on the contract, Sherlock?”

  The uniform was sniffing around the room. “You live here alone?”

  “Like you didn’t ask downstairs?” Tommy asked. “My friend lives here with me. Mr. Thibideau Pike.”

  “Coloured guy — right?”

  “He’s a colourful guy, yeah.”

  “I mean he’s a Negro,” the uniform said.

  “You know, I believe he is a Negro. Should we get some rope and string him up?”

  “You’re a funny man,” the lip said.

  “Yeah, well I just got some bad news.”

  “That so?” the lip said. “Tell me, what do you know about Albert Tigers?”

  “I know he was a nasty two-faced little prick. I can’t figure how he lived as long as he did.”

  The lip looked at the uniform, then nodded. “We’re going to have to search this room, Mr. Cochrane. Now we can have a warrant down here in ten minutes.”

  “Never mind the warrant,” Tommy said. “Help yourself. You think you’re gonna find five thousand dollars here? You think I went down the street and killed a man for five grand when all I had to do is wait here for two minutes and have him walk in and put it in my hand? What am I — an idiot?”

  The uniform regarded Tommy narrowly for a moment. “Do you own a gun, Mr. Cochrane?” the uniform asked.

  Tommy shook his head at the ignorance. “No, I don’t.”

  “Does Mr. Pike own a gun?”

  “No, Mr. Pike does not.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Walking. He likes to walk in the morning.”

  The uniform walked around the room and then turned back to Tommy quickly, pure drama.

  “Who do you know who has a gun?”

  Tommy pointed at the man’s belt. “You do.”

  The search turned up nothing. The lip said he would have more questions for Tommy later. Said that he wanted to talk to T-Bone Pike as well. He told Tommy not to leave the city without informing the police first.

  “I got no place to go,” Tommy told him and it was true.

  The two cops walked out into the hallway.

  “If you haven’t talked to Mac Brady yet — you’d better,” Tommy advised them. “He’s going to want to know about this.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it was his five grand.”

  “I thought you said it was yours,” the lip said.

  “It almost was,” Tommy said and he closed the door.

  When they had gone, Tommy pulled a chair to the window and sat there, watching down into the street. In a minute he saw the lip and his partner making their way down Shuter, heading back to the diner, where they would be asking if anybody saw an Irish heavyweight and a coloured hanging around last night.

  After a while he saw T-Bone strolling back to the hotel, walking long-legged and loose on the concrete, eating a fat red apple he’d cadged somewhere. Tommy always swore that T-Bone could eat on a dollar a week.

  When he came into the room T-Bone pulled a second apple from his pocket and tossed it over. “This for after,” he said. “Right now we goin’ running. Get your BlackHawks on, Thomas.”

  “You can forget about that, Bones,” Tommy said and he told him.

  “Sweet Jesus,” T-Bone said and he sat on his bed. “That Mr. Bert not such a bad man, I expect, once you get to know him.”

  “Bones, you’d give small change to the devil if you had it.”

  “Who do you think do somethin’ like this, Thomas?”

  Tommy shrugged. “Bert was a drunk. Maybe he got loaded and was flashing the wad around the diner. People’ll kill you for a lot less than five grand these days.”

  “You think it finished, Thomas? Or you think that maybe Mac Brady come up with another five thousand?”

  “I don’t think so. I doubt the well’s that deep. When Bert Tigers took that bullet last night, he bought the farm, and that’s no joke.”

  “No sir,” T-Bone said. “It ain’t.”

  And Tommy continued to sit and look out the window, thinking about what might have been because it was easier than thinking about what was.

  Tony Broad spent the morning on the phone long-distance, charging calls to a number of companies he found in the yellow pages. He had arrangements to make and damned little time to make them.

  Billy Callahan was with him and the kid was jackrabbit nervous; he’d killed his first man and he’d been up all night — laughing, worrying, bragging. And talking. Around dawn Tony had given him a part bottle of Kentucky bourbon and after a few shots, Callahan had actually slept awhile. But now he was awake again, pacing and talking, and he was getting on Tony’s nerves.

  When Tony got off the phone this time, he jotted a time down on the phone book cover and then tore it off and handed it over to Callahan.

  “I got a job for you, kid,” he said. “I want you to meet a guy for me. Four-fifteen, at Union Station. Name of Bobby Dean, he’s coming in from Detroit. He’s our actor.”

  “How’m I gonna know him?”

  “You saw him in the movie the other night. Remember — the guy with the horse cock?”

  “I thin
k so.”

  “Pick him up and bring him here. And keep the son of a bitch sober if you can. Let him drink a little beer, if he has to, but nothing else.”

  Callahan began to pace again. Then he realized that Tony was watching him.

  “You want me to go now?” he asked. “It’s four hours away.”

  “Go for a walk or something,” Tony said irritably. “I got work to do and you’re bothering me. We got one day to do this and one day only. And give me the goddamn gun — we don’t need you getting picked up carrying an iron.”

  “I keep my gun.”

  “Give it to me, for fuck’s sakes. Who’s calling the shots here? You want Lee Charles or not?”

  Callahan handed over his weapon and Tony put it on the night table. He indicated that Callahan should go now.

  “You really gonna give five grand to Lee Charles?”

  “Let me worry about what I’m going to give Lee Charles. Make sure Bobby Dean gets here, that’s all you got to do. You’re gonna have a night you’ll never forget, kid.”

  So Callahan left the hotel and walked down Jarvis Street, his chest pounding, his heart in his throat. He’d set something off these past hours and now it seemed like he couldn’t think, like his brain was doing somersaults.

  He had forty dollars in his pocket, money he’d taken from Tigers’ wallet. Tony didn’t know about the forty or he’d have taken it away. Callahan decided he needed a drink. He went into Bryan’s, on Jarvis, for a rye and water. After a while Danny Bonner came in and, while he was hardly Callahan’s best friend, he was somebody to talk to, and Callahan needed to talk today. And Bonner would listen, as long as Callahan stood for the drinks. Besides, there were four hours to kill, and four hours was a long time to be alone with the kind of thoughts that Billy Callahan had in his head.

  After the fight she’d had with Dunston, any excuse would be lame, so she waited until the last minute, then called and told Lucky Ned she wouldn’t be in to work tonight. Ned didn’t ask why and she didn’t say. The band could play without her, instrumental, and Doc Thorne could handle a few vocals if he wanted. The world would keep on turning even without Lee Charles, saloon singer, for one evening.

  On edge, she couldn’t remain in her room, so she went out and took a walk around the city. She had a thought to go visit Tommy — he’d be in the gym — but she realized at once that he would know the minute he saw her, it would be splashed across her face like a sign on a movie marquee.

  She called Patty Simmons from a pay phone on Spadina and asked her to meet her at the Rooster.

  She was two gins up when Patty showed. Patty was late because she’d been to the doctor.

  “I’m pregnant,” she grinned broadly.

  “Good for you,” Lee said. “Let’s drink to it.”

  “Sure, why not? I’ll quit tomorrow. It’s early, right?”

  Patty was full of her news and Lee was glad for it. She kept her secret hidden away, a thing of shame.

  “Here’s to you and motherhood.” Lee raised her glass.

  “Righto,” Patty said. “And here’s to dirty diapers and puke on my blouse, all those things a woman yearns for.”

  “Did you tell Robert?”

  “I called him from the doctor’s. Get this — he’s stopping at the library on the way home to pick up a book of names for the baby. I said, hey, we got eight months.”

  “Well, men are like that,” Lee said. “They get a little nuts when it comes to kids. Probably because they spend so much time acting like kids themselves. Ties that bind.”

  “What about you? You ever think about it?”

  “Sometimes I do.”

  “With Tommy.”

  “Sometimes.”

  Lee’s glass was empty and she waved to the bartender. Getting drunk was probably not a terrific idea, but it sure beat the hell out of the notion of going in sober.

  “Hey, aren’t you working tonight?” Patty asked.

  “Am I ever.”

  “You better take it easy on the Beefeater,” Patty said lightly. “I got a feeling straight-arrow Dunston takes a dim view of boozy dames, especially if they happen to be in his employ. How long you sticking at the Parrot anyway?”

  Lee looked across the table. “I’ve about run my string there. I may be leaving the city soon.” She laughed without happiness. “Maybe on the noon stage, pardner.”

  “What about Tommy?”

  “Maybe we’ll leave together. Don’t you believe in happy endings?”

  “Yeah, but I didn’t know you did. You going back to California then?”

  “Fuck California,” Lee said. “I’ve spent most of my life being in places I didn’t want to be. All because I thought something good would come of it in the end. Well, that never panned out, so this time I’m going to shoot for something simple.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “I’m gonna become a farmer.”

  Patty laughed and took a drink.

  “I’m serious,” Lee told her. “Tommy’s got a place, or he can get it if we can raise the money.”

  “I hear he’s fighting this weekend.”

  “Maybe not. If I can get my hands on the cash, I can talk him out of it. I don’t want him to fight.”

  “It never bothered you before.”

  “Things change, kiddo. Every day you get older, don’t matter how fast you run from it.”

  Lee glanced at her watch and then took down the rest of her gin. She was aware of Patty’s eyes on her.

  “How are you going to raise the money?” Patty asked.

  And Lee grinned through the booze, a false political smile that never quite made it to her eyes. “Remember what I said about being in places I didn’t want to be. Well, this is it. But in spades this time. If there’s a God in heaven, I hope he’s in a forgiving mood these days.”

  She stood up to go. Patty didn’t like the smile or the resignation behind it and she tried to grab Lee’s arm.

  “Wait. Where are you going?”

  “Straight to hell,” Lee told her and she left.

  Herm Bell ran into Danny Bonner on Front Street, near Jarvis. Herm had just skinned a college boy for nearly thirty bucks playing shuffleboard in the Duke Hotel and he was feeling pretty good. The college boy had been with his snotty friends, and he was pretty fair with the rocks, but not in Herm’s league. Herm had played him like a violin, lost three games for a dollar, then won four in a row at a fin a piece, then played the last game for a saw and closed the kid out in five ends. He left the cheeky kid in a pout, his allowance for the week shot. Herm knew he’d have to explain to daddy why he was broke and Herm laughed just thinking about it.

  Danny was strolling along, hands in his pockets, tie loosened. At first Herm didn’t notice his condition.

  “Herman, Herman,” Danny called. “What’d ya say?” “How you doing, Danny?” Herm said. “You going to Ollie’s tonight?”

  “Ollie’s tonight?” Danny repeated. “It ain’t Wednesday already?”

  “Jesus, you’re polluted,” Herm said. “Where the hell you been?”

  “Just blowing the foam off a few, that’s all.” Danny made to do a soft shoe on the concrete and almost went down. “Me and Billy Callahan.”

  “Since when is Callahan your pal?”

  Danny laughed. “Since he bought the drinks all afternoon. He’s all right, that Callahan. But he’s weird, you know? He was talkin’ about stuff I couldn’t even understand.” “He’s a punk.”

  “God, I got to sit down,” Danny said and he flopped onto the curb. “I’m drunk as a lord, Herm, and I’m man enough to admit it. Five in the afternoon and I’m stewed like a bowl of prunes.”

  “You’d better head it home,” Herm said. “Sleep it off and you’ll be up for the game tonight. Did you hear about Bert Tigers?”

  “No.”

  “He’s dead. Somebody shot him last night over on Shuter.”

  “No shit? Who’s Bert Tigers?”

  “Nick Wilsons
trainer, you know that. He was carrying five thousand dollars over to Tommy Cochrane when he bought it. Now the money’s gone and the fight’s off, I hear.”

  “Son of a bitch. What was this fellow’s name?”

  “Bert Tigers.”

  “Ain’t that a son of a bitch,” Danny said again. “I always liked him.”

  “You never knew him.”

  “You’re right, I didn’t, I musta been thinking ’bout somebody else.” Danny shook his head to clear his thoughts. “I tell you about Lee Charles?”

  “What about her?”

  “Billy Callahan says he’s gonna fuck her tonight.”

  “He’s full of shit.”

  “Could be. He’s drunker than I am. But he says he’s fucking her tonight, him and that Tony Broad and I don’t know who else. Some hotel on Isabella. Says they’re makin’ a movie. Sounded pretty sure of himself, too.”

  “Consider the source, Danny,” Herm said. “Callahan and Tony Broad are both a load of shit. Why don’t you head it for home and grab some sleep. Come on, I’ll get you to the streetcar.”

  Herm went home himself after that. But sitting there listening to the radio, he ran things over in his head and he kept coming up with the same scene. Early in the evening he phoned the Blue Parrot and asked for Lee Charles. Lucky Ned told him she wasn’t singing tonight. Herm hung up and took a cab to the Jasper Hotel. But neither Tommy nor T-Bone were at the Jasper.

  Herm hit the street then, heading south. A feeling of foreboding began to grip him; he walked quickly, even though he had no idea where he was going.

  When he passed Sully’s, he spotted T-Bone Pike through the plate glass; T-Bone was leaning on a pool cue and talking to Sully.

  Herm went in and took T-Bone aside and asked where Tommy was.

  “Out having a drink, I expect,” T-Bone said. “That man Mr. Bert got himself killed last night and the money took, so the fight called off. So I figure Tommy gone off to have a drink, or maybe he with Miss Lee.”

  “I don’t think he’s with Lee,” Herm said. “I think maybe Lee’s got herself some trouble.”

  T-Bone put the cue away. Herm told him what he knew about Tony Broad and his business, about Callahan’s boast, and about Lee not being at the Parrot. For a moment he thought T-Bone would actually hit him.